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Typography: The Secret To Web Design

A very common term in Web design; “Typography”, is an integral part of design. It refers to the use of fonts on the world wide web. When we talk of Typography”; another common term comes in it & that is Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) which is a style sheet language used to describe presentation written in markup language like HTML. “CSS” is rather a mechanism for individual web pages to control font display. Well, I discussed about CSS here; because we will come across this term in the later part of our discussion.

Now; genuinely coming to “Typography”, it could be rightly said that, it is the secret to website design. To explain in a better way; when we built websites; we usually start with a bold & much more eye-catching font for our website name/title; our texts are of different fonts etc. Thus, this Typography differentiate between the main part & the subsidiary parts of our website. Olive Relchenstien has correctly said that “Web design is 95% Typography”. It would sound crazy when I say “a website can be attractive & admiring even without images.” what it needs is a strong typography. So, what you all need to have a wonderful job of presenting a visual design through Typography.

Different CSS introduced till date:

Let us discuss on different stages of Cascading Style Sheet in this section of our note.

CSS2: It includes the microsoft’s core fonts like Arial, courier New, Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Impact, Goergia, Trebulent & Verdana. It was developed in 1998 by W3C.

In CSS2 specification, there is a specified technique to download remot fonts. CSS2 includes many new capabilities than CSS1 like absolute, relative & fixed positioning of elements & Z-index, the concept of media types, support for aural style sheet & bidirectional text etc.

CSS3: It is divided to several separate documents called “Modules”. Each module adds new capabilities than CSS2. moreover, CSS3 also supports round edges to elements via the “border-radius” property. Much of the websites utilizes this technique for aesthetic purpose.

CSS4: Though W3C started drafting CSS4 on Sep 2009; it is however currently not supported by any major web browser.

List Of Points For An Effective Typography:

1. Keep limited number of fonts: Do not use too many fonts in your website and try keeping your palette simple. Font coice must be simple 7 consistent.

2. Use unique Typefaces: Typeface is a set of characters that share common design features. Using uncommon, unique Typeface can add a lot of visual interest. Use the novelty fonts in your website for a better look.

4. Show the importance of your words through the letter size: Usually to highlight an important poingt we use bold, large letters. Use small letters in your design very effectively in combination with your words.

5. Use of TypeArt: Type art is a kind of art of typography. It is something to design your text in a way which would improve the readability.

6. Use of catchy phrases: “A pen is mightier than the Sword”; A very common phrase. I used it here in this part of my text; so as to make you understand my point in a better way.